He was as sure of this as he was sure that, granted more perseverance and foresight than he actually possessed, he could have risen to supreme eminence as financier or as diplomat.
But what availed his patience and his foresight, what became of all his plans in life, when the lure of a new love adventure summoned?
Women, always women.

For them he had again and again cast everything to the winds; sometimes for women who were refined, sometimes for women who were vulgar; for passionate women and for frigid women; for maidens and for harlots.

All the honors and all the joys in the world had ever seemed cheap to him in comparison with a successful night upon a new love quest.
Did he regret what he had lost through his perpetual seeking and never or ever finding, through this earthly and superearthly flitting from craving to pleasure and from pleasure back to craving once more?
No, he had no regrets.

He had lived such a life as none other before him; and could he not still live it after his own fashion?
Everywhere there remained women upon his path, even though they might no longer be quite so crazy about him as of old.
Amalia?
He could have her for the asking, at this very hour, in her drunken husband's bed.

The hostess in Mantua; was she not in love with him, fired with affection and jealousy as if he were a handsome lad?
Perotti's mistress, pockmarked, but a woman with a fine figure?
The very name of Casanova had intoxicated her with its aroma of a thousand conquests.